


personal anthem

by picarats



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Introspection, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27688522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picarats/pseuds/picarats
Summary: They're each other, but not quite: they're the kind of reflection that comes from another one, two mirror twins facing each other in a strip mall changing room. Buffy raises her right and Faith, a split second later, raises her left, two million armies behind them of previous dead-eyed destiny-girls drafted to follow suit.(Faith-centric, set mid-Season 3. Faith/Buffy.)
Relationships: Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	personal anthem

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Faith dreams, but she never sleeps. Buffy sleeps, but she never dreams.

This is what separates them, Faith thinks.

They're each other, but not quite: they're the kind of reflection that comes from another one, two mirror twins facing each other in a strip mall changing room. Buffy raises her right and Faith, a split second later, raises her left, two million armies behind them of previous dead-eyed destiny-girls drafted to follow suit.

Faith _does_ know the names of a few of them. It's just not as many as she's seen die in her mind's eye.

She entertains the idea of asking one of the Watcher wonder-boys about them, taps out the beat to _My Sharona_ on her thigh in her motel room as she imagines herself stealing just a moment more of her own history from out of the mouths of Englishmen. Buffy might know, but if she does, she's found out since she died. Post-history is not something Faith NoLastname has ever wanted to be privy to.

…Of course, she _legally_ has a last name, but it's not anything she wants to claim — it belongs to the girl she was before. There's a distinct Before and After in her life — quite a few, actually — but she knows now that she exists in the After.

So she dreams about Buffy, and Buffy never dreams about her. Whatever. The Slayer line is screwed all to hell, so it's not like that's not _expected_. Is it — what's that word Giles used? Narcissism? — to want her other half to do so? To imagine good old Buff waking up wanting more than just a third-person slayer dream, a childhood that was never hers?

Back to Englishmen, Faith thinks, stubbornly, ignoring the sudden twinge in her chest.

When she'd first met Joyce, she remembers, she'd wanted to cry. Because she, thanks to her stupid Buffy slayer memories, was her _mom_ — someone she'd been not-ripped away from in the most surgical, spiritual fashion — and no kind of hard-won Bostonian battle instincts could help her from feeling that way. It had sucked. She'd drunken a lot that night, gotten to second base with some asshole from the Bronze before she'd had to stake him through the heart in the alleyway they'd eventually found themselves in.

She hates Sunnydale, she's decided. Really, really does. One of the Victorian slayers had killed a vampire in Big Ben; now that chick had _style_. All Faith and Buffy have is a clawed over, shared territory of graveyards and abandoned swimming pools, a twisted rotting suburbia with the writing on the wall baked into its identity. It's spray-painted onto its skies, a bright, invisible red.

To be fair, Faith's pretty sure everyone else feels that way too.

Anyway, it's all five-by-five. God, it's always been five-by-five; it always _will_ be five-by-five. She'd picked up the phrase from one of the Slayers that had only lasted a year, an army kid with a fighter pilot father that didn't spend all his time at the craps table. They used to say it to each other, from what Faith can glean from her memories of this girl's last day on Earth before she got torn apart by vamps. They used it to say _I love you._

By hell if she knows what it actually means.

 _Sharona_ turns over to Joel with his _Piano Man_ , Idol with his _White Wedding_ , Billy, Billy, Billy. Faith can't sleep, but she can listen. Past the world's shittiest AM clock radio Red loaned to her, past the loudest neighbours this side of paradise, across the road.

Someone specific.

 _There._ Faith's mirror image heartbeat, each beat sharply different and separate to her own.

Buffy.

She's fighting something. From her gut, she can tell it's no easy one. She probably would need help, if she wasn't Buffy, didn't die and come back fighting from it, leaving Faith and whoever came before her with only their legacies. What does Buffy have that she doesn't, Faith would ask — but she already knows the answer. She still has herself. She still is Buffy, unlike Faith, who is — obviously, to everyone else on the outside — now Faith.

All Slayers are only children. Most of them are orphans, too. She can feel this in her bones, if not from what she has to remember them by, what she knows about herself: they're meant to be alone, built that way. Her and Buffy — the fact that there's the two of them — that's an anomaly. It's pretty damn weird, no matter how you look at it.

She should probably help her, take advantage of the fact that they're a duo, now, but Faith lingers in the status quo for a second longer, drowning in the melodies of old songs and the slick smell of sulphuric vamp dust, the rain in the distance.

Then Faith arches her back, cracks her knuckles, springs off the bed, follows the beat. Remembers to pull a jacket on before she does. She doesn’t want to be replaced with some greenie because of hypothermia, not like she's one of the other ones, naive and unaware that going out into the cold can cause you frostbite.

Faith wants to get laid first.

Buffy is there, of course. She's quipping at, flipping over, staking, taking care of businessmen standing in their own graves — in both senses. Faith grabs one of them by the back of their shoulders, kicks them in the back — they stumble forward, impale themselves on some gothic fence that is definitely not a part of the usual Californian architecture.

“Thanks,” Buffy says, nodding at her. Her hair is still blonde princess-perfect; her top is stained with mud. “You saved me some time.” Her tone is _very_ forced-participation, like Faith's been partnered with her for some science project and her mom is forcing her to invite her over.

“Saved your ass,” Faith corrects, because she's never met a disagreement she doesn't like. “What, you don't want to admit it?”

Buffy's jaw ticks. She steps closer. “Faith —”

Faith surprises her. She meets her equal in the middle, grabs the collar of _her_ jacket and pulls.

It’s not the most violent kiss she's ever had; even before Faith knew her name she was aware that Buffy liked it fairy-tale style. She tastes of chapstick and fire, the dawning of a revolution wrapped in cherry and bubblegum. She feels like summer — her name suits her.

 _Five-by-five_ , Faith thinks, eyes closed as Buffy's hand tentatively rakes its way through her hair. _Five-by-five._

All too soon, a very English throat clears itself in the far distance. Faith's own calloused fingers are snaking their way up her top but the warmth of Buffy's body has already stepped away. Wesley is doing a very good job of staring at them with his mouth open right now, Faith registers; he earns himself a very rude gesture.

Springsteen is on the radio, besides that. He's calling her.

“I know you,” Faith says, as a parting not-quite-shot. She’s not sure whether it's directed to Buffy or any of the rest of them.

Buffy nods. “You too,” she says. 

Faith pretends it means what it could. She's getting pretty good at that. She exists in the After, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
